Liverpool will play a waiting game with the fitness of a string of top stars, including Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, as they prepare for Monday's home clash with Birmingham.
Striker Torres returned to the club's Melwood training ground on Friday after his whistle-stop trip to Valencia. He had sought a second opinion on his groin injury from specialist Ramon Cugat, who he has worked with before and was also favoured by boss Rafael Benitez when he worked at Valencia.
Spanish sources suggest Torres has been told to rest for three weeks but Liverpool's top scorer is still being considered for Monday's match.
If he did rest, Torres would miss Spain's home friendly next weekend against Argentina in his home-town stadium, Atletico Madrid's Vicente Calderon.
And, although there is a two-week international break from league action, Torres would still miss the Birmingham match and then games against Manchester City, Debrecen in the Champions League and the Merseyside derby at Everton.
Torres is believed not to want to take that course of action and has been in light training on Friday.
He will have further careful sessions over the weekend before a decision is made about his availability to face Birmingham.
Gerrard, with a lesser groin problem than Torres, has had another pain-killing injection this week and has also done some light training.
He will continue in the same vein this weekend, when Benitez will also consider his fitness levels.
Albert Riera (hamstring), Fabio Aurelio (calf) and Martin Skrtel (virus) are likely to be back in action but the Reds still have serious worries about Glen Johnson (calf) and Martin Kelly (ankle), with neither expected to be fit for the next match.
Comment 1 - 10 of 10
What's all of this EPL @#$%, what part of Manure are you from again???????????
i said it b4 the season started that wen rafa said hes happy wit the the squad and hes puttin his faith in lucas that we r fu.ked..i hate been rite..i wish i was proved wrong but i wasnt..lucas is bloody 5hite..5 to 10 yard passin and lfc fans r sayin hes improvin..fu.k off all ye clown..lucas now and that long hair clown want 2 fu,k off..carra is passed it and that greece defender is shockin..season over in november..every 1 could c wat we needed but not rafa..i said we needed 2r3 top class players b4 season started r we would b lucky 2 finish in top 4 ...i so hate beein rite..lfc 4 life
Tough time for us Liverpool fans.. Not getting much luck this season! The club needs to modernize ..Yanks OUT and New Anfield in...
Only one good thing about the season so far is..them 2 yanks will not make the cash killing they wanted from Liverpool FC ! The longer they just sit on the club and do nothing with it, the less cash they will make! GET OUT YANKS!!
Comment 2 your saying that we have two good players and the rest pretenders. Well the fact is we easily beat you 2-0 this season with only 80% torres and no gerrard, so if are team are the great pretenders then that must make man utd terrible. You call vidic world class, but the fact is he is awfull. He had one good season and now he is getting beat by everyone. Every time he plays against torres he gets done. WHY? because he is physicologicaly affected by the prospect of going up against torres? NO. He gets beat by torres because torres is a real world class player and vidic is not. The only decent player you have is wayne rooney and ryan giggs( who is 35) and wont last forever. Basically the fact that we beat you 2-0 while playing well shows that our whole team has more quality then yours but we are low on confidence. I advise you to watch the match on sunday, then you'll see just how bad you really are.
comment 3
if anyone has an ageing squad it's Chelsea.
Tony, United are doing fine. Thanks for asking. Already qualified to the next round of CL, 2 points behind the leader in the EPL, still in the hunt for the Carling cup. Chelsea can beat United and nothing of this would change really, cause United only starts to care about the EPL around Xmas as usual. How is Liverpool doing?
Liverpool are finished and its only November, ha ha ha!
You mancs worry about getting smacked by Chelsea and your weakest squad for 20 years, no Rio for 6/8 weeks and Vidic is a mess of a defender. Too many old player's will catch up with you, so wind your neck's in.
Liverpool fans are so biased its unbelievable, stop blaming your plight on injuries, if Benitez had bought decent players instead of no hope wasters you would be putting a decent challenge together with a good squad behind you, instead you have two class players and the rest are a squad of pretending no-hopers that a lot of wouldnt get into a lot of lower EPL sides, Have you ever thought it is realistically possible that if something doesnt change soon you are not going to finish in the top four, do you know what that means besides not qualifying for the Champions league, the lost revenue could mean Liverpool cannot afford to get back in the champions League with Man City in the background and Tottenham also, Liverpool have no money now to spend so what will happen then, the good players you have will leave and you wont be able to afford to buy wold class players and thats if you can attract anybody because they all want to play Champions League football, top four this season not in any order, Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and any one from Tottenham, Man City and Liverpool, if Liverpool dont qualify I fear they are finished for good, it is a possibility if Rafa stays !!!!
Best case scenario is to hold them off against B'ham and gain an extra week with the international break. The Reds can win that game with the same squad that played in Lyon albeit changing Torres for Babel and starting Ngog if he is healthy instead of Vornin. But Benitez knows the squad better than any of us and I know Benitez will @#$% the best case scenario for The Reds.
It is a tricky one but Torres should skip the Argentina friendly. The sentimental value isn't worth the risk.
It is unbelievable how many players are injured. I mean you even forget we still have Riera out but that is part of the game.
You will never walk alone.
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